Issa Diop spent years waiting for a country that would finally call him. Ismael Saibari built his career inside the country he had just helped eliminate. On Monday night in Monterrey, those two men were the difference.
Morocco beat the Netherlands 3-2 on penalties, after a 1-1 draw through 120 minutes, to reach the World Cup round of 16 for the second tournament running. They will face Canada on July 4.
Diop had never scored for Morocco before. Born in Toulouse to a Senegalese father and a Moroccan mother, he came through France’s youth ranks and kept hoping his country would eventually call him up. It never did. He made his Morocco debut in March, four years into a Premier League career that had taken him from West Ham to Fulham, the decision landing in the middle of a real dispute between the two countries of his parents’ birth over a stripped Africa Cup of Nations title.
In the 91st minute, playing for Morocco, a country he’d waited years to choose, and two minutes from elimination, he rose above Virgil van Dijk at a corner and powered a header past Bart Verbruggen that the goalkeeper never got close to. It was the first international goal of his career.
HIGHLIGHTS | Netherlands vs Morocco
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The Netherlands had led since the 72nd minute, when Cody Gakpo scored after Crysencio Summerville’s run dragged the Moroccan defence apart. Gakpo had returned to the squad two days after he and his partner announced the loss of their unborn son, due in October. He stayed with the team rather than withdraw. He dropped to his knees after the goal, head in his hands, and his teammates left the bench as one to reach him.
None of it had been easy to get to. Saibari’s boot caught Jan Paul Van Hecke flush on the head as the two went up for a corner, the contact accidental but the consequence immediate. Van Hecke turned on him at once, a hand at Saibari’s throat, the referee wading in before it went further. No card for either man.
Morocco had the better of it either side of that. Hakimi, winning his 100th cap, whipped in a corner that El Aynaoui met on the run, only for Verbruggen to tip it over. Micky Van de Ven made the tackle of the match on Hakimi just past the hour, a clean strip that even Hakimi seemed to acknowledge with a nod rather than an appeal.
Then Gakpo’s goal, and for nineteen minutes it looked enough.
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Diop’s header changed that. Chemsdine Talbi, on for Bilal El Khannouss with the clock running down, swung in the corner that Diop met with everything he had. Six minutes into extra time, Soufiane Rahimi nearly won it outright, getting a clean strike away.
Verbruggen spread himself across the goal and somehow got enough on it to keep the score level.
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The shootout had everything the match itself had been missing. Koopmeiners opened it for the Netherlands. El Aynaoui put Morocco’s first attempt against the bar. Kluivert struck the post for the Dutch. Rahimi’s penalty trickled in off Verbruggen’s own heel after the goalkeeper had got a hand to it and let it squirm loose. Weghorst scored to make it 2-1, Talbi levelled it at 2-2. Timber shot wide for the Dutch. Hakimi against the post for Morocco. Yassine Bounou heroically turned away Summerville’s effort. Saibari, last man up, sent Verbruggen the wrong way.
There was a particular irony in who took the winning kick. Saibari was born in Spain, raised partly in Belgium, and built his career at PSV Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, the country he had just helped eliminate. As a teenager he turned down an approach from Belgium’s senior team before the 2022 World Cup, telling their manager he had already made his choice. His heart, he said, was with Morocco.
He spilled blood too, when a nasty head wound at the end of extra-time led to a gruesome gushing of red blobs falling onto his crisp white jersey. A support staff would patch him up on the sideline, wipe off the trickle and hand him a new shirt. There wasn’t a second thought of stopping.
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As a child, doctors had warned his parents that a condition in his legs and feet might stop him walking properly, let alone playing football for a living.
His family’s road ran from Ksar El Kebir in northern Morocco to Spain to Belgium to the Dutch league he now plays in, the same league that produced the goalkeeper he beat from twelve yards.
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Morocco’s players didn’t so much celebrate as collapse. Several dropped to the turf in sajda, foreheads pressed to the grass. Saibari pulled his own shirt off. The broadcast lingered on it, the travelling support in green and red living the same release at once.
It is the first time in the country’s history Morocco have reached the World Cup’s knockout rounds in consecutive tournaments, this nucleus largely the one that became the first African side ever to reach a semi-final, in Qatar four years ago. Bounou, the goalkeeper from that run and this one, had said before the tournament that the heart of the team was unchanged. Monterrey was the proof he was right.
Gakpo’s goal will be remembered for what it carried more than what it won. Diop’s header, and Saibari’s penalty, will be remembered for keeping a story going that Morocco have been writing since 2022.
Morocco beat the Netherlands 3-2 on penalties, after a 1-1 draw through 120 minutes, to reach the World Cup round of 16 for the second tournament running. (AP Photo) 
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